OYO Rooms raises Rs 150 cr from Lightspeed Venture, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital

OYO Rooms, India's leading network of branded budget hotels has raised Rs 150 crore from Lightspeed, Sequoia, Greenoaks Capital and DSG Consumer Partners. This will help the two year old company to realize its ambition of becoming the largest technology-enabled network of hotels in the world.

With a humble beginning from one hotel in Gurgaon in 2013, OYO Rooms has now grown to more than 200 hotels in 10 cities booking 50,000 room nights every month. OYO Rooms is well poised to aggressively expand its network to 1000 hotels in 25 cities by this year end.

OYO Rooms leverages internet and mobile technology to offer a delightful experience to the consumer right from booking to check-out. OYO's hotel-facing technology enables hotels to increase their occupancy and become a part of a brand that is recognized and loved nationwide.

Announcing the fresh round of fund raise, Ritesh Agarwal, Thiel fellow, CEO of OYO Rooms said, "When I was 18, I travelled across the country and stayed at more than 100 budget hotels. This journey led me to realize how difficult it was to get a pleasant and reliable consumer experience in these hotels. So, in a quest to make affordable stays 'real', I started OYO Rooms. Our vision is to offer the 'OYO Rooms experience' to every business, leisure and pilgrim traveler across 100 cities through a network of 10,000 hotels. We welcome Greenoaks as a partner and are very excited to work with them. Our current investors- Lightspeed, Sequoia and DSG have been great partners in helping us build and scale the company."

Abhinav Sinha, COO of OYO Rooms said, "Our customers have options, so we understand it is important to deliver an exceptional experience consistently to win their trust. This requires strong execution capabilities at all levels. OYO has laid a robust foundation with efficient operating processes, real time integration of inventory with hotels, and effective customer feedback collection and processing."

Neil Mehta, Managing Director and Founder of Greenoaks Capital said, "We believe OYO Rooms has an incredible opportunity to solve major pain points for hotel owners and customers by leveraging technology to deliver a consistently great experience in the budget hotel space. We are especially excited about the team at OYO and could not be more proud to partner with them on this exciting journey."

Bejul Somaia, Managing Director at Lightspeed India said "The economy stays segment is a large, unorganized and fragmented market and we believe that OYO brings a new, scalable and customer-friendly approach to addressing this opportunity.  Ritesh and Abhinav have forged a strong partnership to build OYO. We look forward to helping them in fulfilling their mission of building the world's largest technology-enabled hotel network."

Gautam Mago, Managing Director at Sequoia Capital India Advisors said "We are delighted to partner with the OYO team in their journey to transform the economy stays segment in India. Their innovative approach to solve the pain felt by hotel owners and consumers has allowed them to scale very quickly and we look forward to working with them as they build the company to the next level."

Deepak Shahdadpuri, Managing Director at DSG Consumer Partners said "DSG Consumer Partners continues to support OYO as it scales its business building on our strategy of backing early stage business and providing intellectual and financial capital through a company's life cycle. We are confident that management will build a best in class technology platform to deliver value to hotel owners and consumers."